> I am not arguing that they WERE making sex jokes, or that it rose to the level of a firing offense, just that "she could have asked us to stop" is not a good argument.

What was the appropriate response, then? I honestly think assertive and honest feedback is often the most effective way to curb unwanted behavior.

> But I think one of the important points here is that women should not NEED to turn around and ask the guys to stop making sex jokes.

Most of the time they don't. We're talking about exception handling, here. Just because a situation is less than ideal (i.e. two guys making phallic jokes at a conference) does not automatically validate a DEFCON 4 response.

Tweeting a picture isn't a DEFCON 4 response. I don't really think that it's that problematic- they were breaking the rules of the conference that they had agreed to, and calling someone out publicly is a very common method of enforcing social norms. It's not necessarily the most nuanced or feel-good method, but it's not like they had an expectation of privacy while in a crowded convention room. The overreaction here came from the guy's company, and we really don't know the whole story there.